ensuring long term environmental sustainability in the KZN midlands

Boston Wildlife Sightings for August 2013

August has been typically windy and dry, despite a few showers and snow glistening on the Drakensberg in the distance. Amazingly a few spring flowers are appearing. Apodolirion buchananii, sweet scented if you bend down low and sniff;

and only noticed for the first time last year the minute Helichrysum caespititium is flowering, the individual flowers only mm’s in diameter.

Common Reedbuck and Black-backed Jackal are heard most nights and the Duiker have nibbled away the leaves from violets near the house.

On the 19 August I saw my first Yellow-billed Kite of the season. Red-collared Widowbirds have started to congregate and courting plumage beginning to show. A Cape Eagle-owl calls particularly loudly on moonlight nights and just before dawn. A lovely sighting of a Drakensberg Prinia flitting in the branches of flower laden Halleria lucida.

David Clulow at The Willows: Grey Crowned Cranes at “Melrose”; Darter on dam with Egyptian Geese behind “Calderwood”; Black-shouldered Kite on R617; African Shelduck at pan on “The Willows”;

Gordon Pascoe of Keswick: Seen on Edgeware near one dam: 2 Adult Grey Crowned Cranes with 3 Juveniles, all able to fly.

Caroline McKerrow of Stormy Hill: Four Grey Crowned Crane on “Forset Dew” on 19 August; Village Weavers nesting on “Stormy Hill”; two jackal Buzzards overhead; Speckled Pigeons nesting in box near house; two Vervet Monkeys; one Duiker; one hamerkop.

Ian and Jenny Lawrence of Endeavour: Two groups of Blue Cranes: one of three birds, the other of a pair; Yellow-billed Kites; one Denham’s Bustard with leg problem – limping; African Shelduck; four Grey Crowned Cranes, two being juveniles. On 26 August saw the first White Stork of the season

Peter and Karen Geldart of Coquidale: Five Southern Ground Hornbills

Crystelle Wilson – Gramayre

It is always exciting when a bird list submitted to the SABAP2 atlas project throws up unexpected out-of-range or rarity sightings. We had one in August when my Boston neighbour David Clulow and I went birding at Nzinga in the vicinity of the Brooklyn and Mt Le Soeur farms, 2930_2940. A “little brown job” which I photographed on a hillside was listed as a regional rarity. The African Rock Pipit is endemic to South Africa and Lesotho and its habitat is mountains and escarpments, open areas with rocky outcrops. Trying to identify the bird from my pictures I was initially thrown by its black feet, which isn’t shown in any of the images in the bird books, but then I twigged it must’ve been walking through burnt grass.

Back in my own home pentad at Boston I was very pleased to come across a string of Orange-breasted Waxbills again. They are shy birds, apparently on the decline in the Midlands. I sometimes see them in the wetlands at Gramarye, but was concerned about their whereabouts after we burned the area in August. The waxbills have moved up the hill along the stream on The Drift farm and they seem to hang out in the rye grass. Families of cranes are still doing well with the juniors growing up and stretching their wings now.

Wonderful photos and records – so may I tentatively add what I found an additional delight: Crystelle Wilson told me that on 25 and 26 August 2013 respectively, she counted 56 and then 57 to 59 Grey Crowned Cranes flocking (as they do at this time of the year) on Melrose arm in the heart of Boston. Mingling with Geese, lying down and fluttering about, accurate counting was difficult, but the numbers were nevertheless impressive

Milestone Forest Walk - BalgowanSeptember 1, 2017 at 7:00 am – 9:00 amVisit the historic farm where the very first Conservancy in South Africa was started in 1978, to walk in the forest amongst the Yellowwoods. Contact Marilyn Revesz 082 427 3365 Donation: R20 to Balgowan Conservancy